1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to improvements in manufacturing technology and in particular to methods and systems for efficiently generating manufacturing process plans intended for use by manufacturing technicians. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to improved methods for generating consistent computer based manufacturing process plans which include corresponding annotated visual images which may be easily followed by a manufacturing technician.
2. Description of the Related Art
Manufacturing technology has long had as its primary goal the ability to consistently produce a high quality product. Over the years the efforts which have been made to achieve this goal have been directed primarily to the improvement of the documentation which is utilized by the manufacturing technician or floor operator during the manufacturing process. However, the rapidity with which the product undergoes Engineering Changes (EC) and the manufacturing process evolves often renders hard copy documentation obsolete soon after it has been distributed. The probability that the primary documentation utilized by the floor operator is either downlevel or incomplete will often result in degradation in either product quality or consistency and reduced manufacturing productivity.
As a result of the aforementioned problem, it has been a recent goal in manufacturing circles to implement the so-called "Paperless Factory." The foremost objective of a Paperless Factory system is to provide high quality information on the manufacturing plant floor. High quality in this sense is information which is current, understandable, complete and consistent. Product data currency is a key issue in those areas where manufacturing is presented with frequent Engineering Change (EC) activities from Product Design and Engineering. The level of detail and clarity of the information provided to the manufacturing plant floor is important and its value is clearly reflected in the quality of the physical product which is being manufactured.
One key issue in the implementation of a Paperless Factory system is an analysis of the intended audience for the information which is distributed to the manufacturing shop floor. The reading competency of operators on the shop floor is an important factor in the design and implementation of a Paperless Factory system.
As a result, Paperless Factory implementations make information quality and clarity more important than in traditional paper-driven implementations. Poor quality information available on line through a computer terminal may be far more damaging than poor quality information in a hard copy or paper format within the manufacturing plant setting. Operators will tend to expect that the information viewed on a computer terminal is the best and clearest available, whereas hard copy format is known to be often incomplete or unclear. As a result of incomplete or unclear hard copy information, operators in a traditional manufacturing plant often rely on informal communications with technicians, engineers, and other operators to determine work instructions in addition to the paper sources of information formally provided by the manufacturing engineer.
A goal in the modern Paperless Factory system is to systematize much of the patchwork of formal and informal communication which exists in today's manufacturing environment to improve product quality and productivity. Therefore, implementation of the Paperless Factory is more challenging than simply putting the same information which is available on paper on a computer terminal on the plant floor. For example, an ideal Paperless Factory implementation will eliminate or minimize grammar or syntax inconsistencies which are always present in process plans generated by a Manufacturing Engineer.
There are several motivations for the implementation of a Paperless Factory. The most obvious motivation is the ability to provide highly current data and configuration management to the shop floor. The information being utilized by the operator on the manufacturing shop floor in performing the manufacturing or repair operation should be the correct Engineering Change (EC) level available. In accordance with the current practice, process instructions are usually available in hard copy at the operator bench; however, the information generally available to the operator has an excellent chance of being downlevel or mismatched (i.e., a drawing which does not match the process instructions).
A well implemented Paperless Factory will eliminate or reduce the process specifications and documentation presented in paper format to the shop floor and replace those specifications with on line operator guidance which meets the shop floor requirement of high quality, current information. Another advantage of the Paperless Factory implementation is the elimination of the sheer volume of hard copy information required for the manufacturing process. It is not uncommon in certain manufacturing processes to require several hundred thousand pieces of paper for building a particular product, such as a jet aircraft. Thus, the keeping of thousands of process instructions accurate and up-to-date can result in a major bookkeeping problem. A design change may require a change to many thousands of part numbers and affect many different operations. Experience has shown that many quality problems on the shop floor can be traced to poor process documentation or out-of-date information.
Several different techniques have currently been proposed to assist the manufacturing engineer in the generation of process plans for manufacturing a product. Two such examples, "Intelligent Documentation" by CIMLINC and "Adam" by DOCUGRAPHIX both present a so-called "intelligent form" which allows the manufacturing engineer to type textual instructions into a boiler plate process form sheet. The blanks within these forms are then linked to relational data bases, directories of CAD files and ASCII text files. These textual instructions are keyed in by the manufacturing engineer and may be displayed along with a visual image of a product. An excellent example of such a system is "Shop Assist" from the GDQF family of products from International Business Machines Corporation, Inc. However, none of the aforementioned process planning techniques provides any assistance to the manufacturing engineer in the preparation of the textual instructions for the operator. As a result, there is no consistency or forethought utilized in preparing textual instructions for the floor operator. Additionally, the preparation of annotated or "marked up" drawings for implementation with such systems is a time consuming and complex problem.
Systems for the creation of drawings and schematic representations of circuits or the like are well known in the prior art. Such systems generally utilize iconic representations of circuit elements which may be randomly selected by an operator and graphically positioned within a desired circuit diagram. Excellent examples of this technology may be seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,656,603 and 4,813,013. However, neither of these two patents discloses or suggests a technique for generating consistent computer based manufacturing process plans which include consistent textual instructions and which automatically annotate a product image to depict a location for the application of a manufacturing process.
As a result, it should be apparent that a need exists for an improved method and system for generating consistent computer based manufacturing process plans which include corresponding annotated visual images which may be easily followed by a manufacturing technician and which utilize consistent textual instructions.